An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon

I have been following the story of Claire and Jamie Fraser for over ten years now, ever since I read Outlander, and it just keeps getting better and better. It is a romance, and the time-traveling through the standing stones lends it an element of science fiction as well. Claire met Jamie in Outlander, and Gabaldon’s subsequent books have taken their story through the years. In An Echo in the Bone, Jamie and Claire are now grandparents, separated by an ocean–and two hundred years–from their daughter and her family. They have gone from Scotland to the American colonies, and they find themselves in the midst of the American Revolution.

I can’t tell you what I like more about this series. I like the way Claire’s and Jamie’s relationship has matured. I like that the dialogue is real. I like the well-researched historical background. Hmmm… I guess I can tell you why I like this story! And just when I thought that since Claire and Jamie are now grandparents I didn’t know how much farther their story could go, Diana Gabaldon came up with a new plot twist that suggests that the story isn’t over yet.

An Echo in the Bone isn’t a girly type of romance although, well, I am a girl and I do like it. My test for whether a book is really good is if the hubby likes it, and he does. He stuck with me as we read all 814 pages. (It took us about six weeks. Work takes a lot of time away from reading) There was enough manly stuff in it to keep him interested and, he admitted, he was interested in Claire’s and Jamie’s story as well. In fact, he sent me in search of Outlander so that he can get all the details from the beginning.

That only has a little over six hundred pages. Think we can finish it by the end of Christmas break?